Jealous guy

I was reading one of those baby development websites. You know the ones designed to make you feel that your baby is destined for life in the remedial set as he has failed to master any of the arts he has the potential to achieve. I laughed out loud as I read that the babies should now be sitting unaided, drinking from cups and whizzing through advanced calculus by now.

Fortunately my first son taught me to take no notice of anything printed on these baby websites. I remember agonising as friend's babies sat up, crawled and walked, while my boy remained steadfastly motionless. At his first birthday party all the other babies where crawling around like crazed beetles, while he sat like a Buddha, fatly serene in the centre of all the action. He didn't crawl until he was 14 months, by which time his contemporaries were up and running around the park, and it took another four months before he took his first step.

We always say that he was thinking about it all too much to actually do it, as once he did walk he didn't have the usual clumsy toddler gait, falling over all the time and wobbling unsteadily about ready to topple at the first obstacle. Not for him the ungainly process of learning to walk, instead he thought it all out and by the time he got up and took his first step he had it nailed and never really looked back.

Now he is as elegant and swift as a gazelle and one of the fastest, most agile boys I have ever met, so it just goes to show that what they do now, bears no relation to what they will achieve later, so yah boo sucks to Babycentre et al.

I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original point though, which was the one point of developmental information that did seem to ring true for the twins. It said that at this age babies suddenly realise that they are individuals in their own right, rather than just an extension of their mummy, or in the twins case of each other.

I was interested to read this as twin two has just started to show the first signs of jealousy around his brother. The other day twin one was crying in his bouncy chair, twin two was playing happily with his feet, absorbed in his favourite game of sock removal. I picked up his crying brother and gave him a cuddle to soothe him, not reaction from twin two who was now contentedly chewing on the removed sock.

Then twin two looks up, his blue eyes cloud as he notices that there are cuddles going on and he is not included. They darken from a bright, slate grey, to a stormy indigo, his mouth opens in a red maw of disapproval, a scream emits and the eyes squeeze out angry tears. The sock is discarded, forgotten as he makes it quite clear that if one twin is getting a snuggle, the other one wants in.

An ungainly few moments of hefting and wriggling later both boys are smiling and settled on my hips. I can see this twin thing is just about to get a bit more tricky, but at least it means there's the possibility that I will end up with biceps to rival Madonnas as they don't half weigh a ton.